Hannan Mosag had proclaimed this the greatest flaw among the Edur. Old men and the dead were the first whisperers of the word vengeance . Old men and the dead stood at the same wall, and while the dead faced it, old men held their backs to it. Beyond that wall was oblivion. They spoke from the end times, and both knew a need to lead the young onto identical paths, if only to give meaning to all they had known and all they had done.
Feuds were now forbidden. Crimes of vengeance sentenced an entire bloodline to disgraced execution.
Trull Sengar had watched, from where he stood in the gloom beneath a tree – the body before him – had watched his brother Rhulad walk out into the forest. In these, the dark hours, he had been furtive in his movement, stealing like a wraith from the village edge.
Into the forest, onto the north trail.
That led to the cemetery that had been chosen for the Beneda warrior’s interment.
Where a lone woman stood vigil against the night.
It may be an attempt… that will fail. Or it is a repetition of meetings that have occurred before, many times. She is unknowable. As all women are unknowable. But he isn’t. He was too late to the war and so his belt is bare. He would draw blood another way.
Because Rhulad must win. In everything, he must win. That is the cliff-edge of his life, the narrow strand he himself fashions, with every slight observed – whether it be real or imagined matters not – every silent moment that, to him, screams scorn upon the vast emptiness of his achievements.
Rhulad. Everything worth fighting for is gained without fighting. Every struggle is a struggle against doubt. Honour is not a thing to be chased, for it, as with all other forces of life, is in fact impelled, streaking straight for you. The moment of collision is where the truth of you is revealed.
An attempt. Which she will refuse, with outrage in her eyes.
Or their arms are now entwined, and in the darkness there is heat and sweat. And betrayal.
And he could not move, could not abandon his own vigil above this anonymous Beneda warrior.
His brother Fear had made a sword, as was the custom. He had stood before Mayen with the blade resting on the backs of his hands. And she had stepped forward, witnessed by all, to take the weapon from him. Carrying it back to her home.
Betrothal.
A year from that day – less than five weeks from now – she would emerge from the doorway with that sword. Then, using it to excavate a trench before the threshold, she would set it down in the earth and bury it. Iron and soil, weapon and home. Man and woman.
Marriage.